We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Saturday, February 4. 2006

As the cartoon nonsense spins out of control, resulting in destruction of property and expressions of religious hatred and intolerance, any blogger worthy of the name must have an opinion.

Our opinion is that people, in the "free world," have and should have the freedom to mock, criticize, and satirize anyone and anything: Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Indians, atheists, whites, blacks, hispanics, Poles, Norwegians, and every other human category. All are fair game.

We do not particularly enjoy it when such things are done in rude, crude or socially unacceptible ways, but that's just too bad: hypersensitivity is the problem of the hypersensitive and, as they say in AA, "Feelings aren't facts." Besides humor, expressions of anger and hate need to be permitted. When Julian Bond terms all Republicans "Nazis," some folks just laugh, some are upset, and some are deeply disturbed. But freedom means freedom to be a dumb jerk, and to express hate, however loony or untrue. Thankfully, we have the freedom to talk back and to satirize such malignant idiocy, and to expose them as wacko fools, as has been done with the KKK.

We've been known to get a little juvenile on these pages, ourselves, with the occasional TR ("therapeutic rant"), etc. I thought that Piss Christ was hideously offensive, and a childish effort to get attention by being "controversial". I find the Moslem newspapers' anti-semitic cartoons equally offensive. Were those Danish cartoons offensive? Only mildly so, if you have a chip on your shoulder and are looking for a fight and have no sense of humor. "Orchestrated tantrums," in the words of Gates of Vienna. But words and pictures are not action. Sticks and stones...

Free speech means we all have to be willing to be offended, rightly or wrongly. The Moslem world clearly does not widely share that ideal, and exists in a different, quasi-medieval culture with entirely different ideals and rules: a theocratic, autocratic culture in which wife-beating is normal practice, in which hanging is an acceptable punishment for gays, beheading the punishment for adultery, and the word of the Prophet, however interpreted, is the Law. Nor do they make the sharp distinction between speech and action that we do, and neither did Jesus.

They are not on the same page that we are on: we left it 400 years ago with The Enlightenment. No-one enjoys having their world-view changed: it entails both a loss, and an unclear future. There are plenty of Americans who, even now, resent the effects of the Enlightenment, regardless of how much we are the beneficiaries of it.

The Moslem Middle-East, it seems to me, is in the position of resisting our Western Enlightenment. All of our ideals - political freedom, democracy, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, hedonism - are felt to be a threat to a long-established world view. What surely makes it feel worse is that these ideas are imports - not home-grown. However, the outside Western influence will prove irresistable in time - just see all of those satellite dishes on the tops of apartment buildings in Tehran. TV, the Internet, and the shrinking world will sooner or later, for better or worse, change the culture of the Middle East. They are experiencing a reaction, similar to our historical Inquisition and Counter-Reformation. But to understand the European Counter-Reformation is not to excuse it. And to understand the cultural threat felt in the Middle East by Western ideas does not to excuse barbaric behavior.

Should we respect other cultures? I see no reason why we should. Respect, like trust, is a precious gift and not a casual commodity. Should we be interested in understanding other cultures? Sure, if we are curious, but just understanding our own is the work of a lifetime or two. Should we tolerate intolerance expressed in destructive action? Of course not. Should we stand for the freedom to say dumb and cruel things? Sure. Should we speak against dumb and cruel statements? Of course. Should we be intimidated? Never. Do we have things worth fighting for? Damn right we do. And not only that, but if the Jihadists will leave us alone, they are free to live however they chose, in their own homeland. Just don't tread on me.

Image on top from yesterday's "protest" in London. Is such a threat of violence covered under freedom of speech? Lawyers know the answer to that.

MORE LAZY REPORTING FROM THE MEDIA
As I have written many times, what appears to be media bias can instead actually be an institutional laziness on the part of reporters or even groups of reporters. In these cases, there is little effort made to explain an issue or event and put it in ...

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